By Zenitha Prince
AFRO Contributing Editor
History, it’s said, is written by the victors. And since Donald Trump won the 2024 general election, he’s been on a campaign to rewrite America’s past by erasing Black history. The latest targets: a National Parks Service webpage detailing information about the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the library of the U.S. Naval Academy.
The truth about slavery – how America was built upon the backs of the Black enslaved; the unique and outstanding contributions of African Americans to various aspects of American life; the ongoing struggle for equity, inclusion, civil rights and justice–all have been subject to an Oval Office-led effort to Whitewash history and pander to the delusion of White victimhood.
Trump has pursued this goal by ordering the dismantling or removal of all equity, diversity and inclusion policies and practices. His executive order against inclusion and diversity has resulted in a striking of literature from federal agencies and pressure on private sector entities to do the same by threatening to cut federal funding and contracts.
The National Parks Service, in a recent attempt to comply with Trump’s directive, edited a webpage on Underground Railroad hero Harriet Tubman in a way that appeared to downplay Tubman’s role and sanitize the harsh realities of American slavery.
For example, according to The AP, the original opening sentence referenced the railroad’s core role in “the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.” However, an edited version called the railroad “one of the most significant expressions of the American Civil Rights Movement” and described how it “bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences and nationality.”
Civil rights leaders immediately decried the changes. Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called the move “an attack on truth, an attempt to erase history that would help us improve society today, a refusal to be uncomfortable and engaged in changing harmful policies and practices.”
The public backlash prompted the NPS to walk back the edits on April 8.
The controversy came on the heels of news that Trump had turned his sights on the Smithsonian Institution, particularly the National Museum of African American History and Culture, for what he deemed “improper ideology” in the depictions of American history.
In a March 27 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the president empowered Vice President J.D. Vance to review all the Smithsonian’s properties, programs and presentations to prohibit programs that “degrade shared American values” or “divide Americans based on race.”
Under the harsh glare of the White House, Kevin Young, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016, announced his resignation April 4. Young had served as director since January 2021, succeeding Lonnie G. Bunch III after the latter became secretary of the Smithsonian. Under Young’s leadership, the museum launched a digital “Searchable Museum” in the fall of 2021 and kicked off its $350 million “Living History” campaign the following year.
Bunch addressed the president’s executive order in a memo to Smithsonian staff, writing that the institution “will continue to showcase world-class exhibits, collections, and objects, rooted in expertise and accuracy.”
Historians, civil rights leaders and members of the Black community say they are not surprised that Trump is targeting institutions like NMAAHC, and some expressed their anger with his actions.
“I’m sick of this s–t,” Derrick Vines vented in frustration, “…every day something new.”
“This museum is a wonderful place. Rich in history. It should remain at all costs,” commented Sharron Malachi Watkins on the AFRO’s Facebook page. “He is trying to erase our history. He is trying to erase us. His hatred is deep rooted.”
Michael J. Hudson wondered if other Black institutions would be targeted. “Are they [going] to close down HBCUs next?”
In another milepost along Trump’s road to revisionist American history, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on April 4 presented a list of nearly 400 books removed from its library to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s directive to scrub all traces of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Among the list of 381 books are Maya Angelou’s famous memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and other volumes on histories of and issues relating to the Holocaust, feminism, civil rights and racism, gender identity and other targeted topics. The Academy also reviewed its curriculum and class offerings – modifying some and slashing others.
The Pentagon’s overzealous efforts to comply with Trump’s executive order targeting diversity have stirred public indignation after the wholesale deletion of webpages dedicated to baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s military career; Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first Black U.S. Secretary of State; Army Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers, a Black recipient of the Medal of Honor; the Navajo Code Talkers and Japanese Americans, among others.
AFRO reader Kelly F. Lebron Schwartz offered her theory on why Trump and his cohorts were attacking Black history, Black personages and the community in general.
“The illusion of superiority can only be maintained by veiling the brilliance of others, for when true greatness emerges, it casts shadows upon those who seek to reign unchallenged,” she wrote. “Thus, the erasure of history and achievement becomes not an act of strength, but a confession of fear—a silent admission that White supremacy is but a fragile mirage, sustained only through the dimming of all other lights.”